Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence (CSSLRV)

The Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence was established in 2005 through funding awarded to Dr. Myrna Dawson from the Canadian Foundation of Innovation. The award was to support the establishment of a research unit at the University of Guelph that would focus its research activities on understanding the impacts of social and legal responses to violence. In 2008, as part of being awarded a Canada Research Chair in Public Policy in Criminal Justice, Dr. Dawson received additional funding from the Canadian Foundation of Innovation to expand her Research Centre. The overarching objectives of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence are to create and mobilize knowledge about effective social and legal responses to violence through systematic and rigorous research, to transfer and exchange knowledge that can inform public policy which seeks to reduce and prevent violence, and to train future researchers who can further sustain violence prevention research. Along with many University of Guelph colleagues whose research focuses on various topics related to violence, Dr. Dawson, together with her Centre’s Research Associates and graduate and undergraduate students, has been actively working toward this goal, focusing in particular on violence against women in its many forms.